Research

Okay, so my resolution to not write about writing lasted really long. NOT. Anyway. NaNoWriMo is only five days away (and quickly counting down) and I’ll finally be able to start writing my next book. Honestly, you can only edit the same stuff so much, before you just want to start hashing out new scenes.

My favorite part about writing though, is the research required. You can't write something without at least a little research, and since I write in the modern era (aka. here and now), all the more research is needed. I can spend hours and hours on it, trying to find just the right search term, trying to figure out if what I want to happen is really possible.

For my first NaNo, I had no real plan, so I didn’t do any research before I started writing. Each day that I wrote though, I immersed myself in things about Wales, the UK, Jacques Cartier, Newton's laws of motion (don't ask), Vermont, the Boston Airport, weather at different times of year in different places, and all kinds of medical things. I mean, if your character gets hurt, you have to at least make it look realistic, right?

I spent so much time learning about Wales, and the history of Wales, that by the end of the month, there was only one country that I really wanted to go to. Wales. I still really want to go there, and I hope to someday... Along with all the other countries that I had to research ^_^

Being from the US, I also had to learn all about the schooling system over there, and all the differences. Being homeschooled also made writing from that perspective a little harder as well. Oh well, I made him homeschooled for three years :)

Even after NaNo, and I took a break from writing for a while, I still kept researching. Random things would pop up to me, and I think that that would be really good to know about. So I’d look it up. By the time June came around, and I finished writing and editing my book for my proof copy, I felt like I knew a lot about Wales, about Vermont, a lot about all kinds of random stuff.

Even now, I’m doing some last minute researching, including writing out a whole family tree for him, from the 1500s all the way up to the present. Yeah, it’s been interesting. First I had to find names that would've been applicable to those eras, and that took forever. I’m learning a lot more about the country, counties in Wales, and more about the history in those time periods, as I try to give his ancestors occupations. I spent a couple hours learning all about the Royal Navy, trying to find a suitable ship for his ancestor to serve on, and then had to make sure that the ancestors position wasn’t too high that he’d be expected to be in the history books. They have to be invisible ^_^ Research for probably only one or two chapters of the book, but important to me all the same. Hours have been spent researching the most mundane things, from allergic reactions to P.E./Health textbooks that he’d likely use. I will be prepared this year :)

I just hope I’m not taking all the fun out of it ahead of time...

StarLit

S.O.Y.

I’m not going to write about writing. I’m not going to write about writing. I’m not going to write about writing. I’m not going to write about writing. There. I won’t. Not today. November’s almost here, so wait until then :)

On a slightly religious bent, today/tonight I’m going to write about something that I did. A couple weeks ago, more than a month now, I guess, my youth group went to an area church and did the complete church service.

We call ourselves S.O.Y. This is not the youth group with MY Sixth Graders; this is just a bunch of high school/college students. Anyway, S.O.Y. Serving Other Youth. We’ll go to various churches, do the whole service from welcome to sermon to benediction.

Since May, when we started, we’ve gone to three churches. I’ve done something upfront all three times. The first time, the least stressful, I gave a mission story. All I did was talk about a trip I took with my older brother to Brazil a few years ago, and the miracle of the batteries (more on that another time). The second time, I was asked to give a testimony. I freaked out for a few days, then the night before figured out what I was going to talk about. I was going to talk about writing.

No, no! I promise, I’m not writing about writing, I’m writing about giving a testimony about writing. Make any sense? :P Didn’t think so.

Anyway. The third time, and most recent, we went to a nearby church that I haven’t been inside of in over ten years. Yes, a very, very, long time ago, and it turns out, I knew more than half the population of the church. And this was where I was to give my testimony?!

It’s one thing to talk about my testimony to people I don’t know, to people that I’ll probably never see again, but another thing completely where it’s people that I’ve known for years. People who know me, and might, possibly, judge me, because I’m not a perfect person. To say the least, I was afraid.

The interesting thing was, once I was up there, and made sure not to look directly at anyone I knew, the fear faded away. I was still nervous, I always am when I’m upfront of people, but I knew I had a purpose. It didn’t matter what they thought of me, because I was telling others, sharing my “testimony,” about the ways that God had been working through my life, and how He’s brought me closer to Him.

I won’t write out the entire testimony, as that would take too long (and I’m supposed to be going to bed). The gist of it was that God was using my interest in writing to bring me closer to Him, to help me remember to study my bible, and sometimes, even asking those questions that I didn’t really want to think about. It’s complicated, so maybe I’ll put that up as another post. We’ll see.

Sentimental StarLit Signing Off ^_^

You Are Here

You have arrived. Success. You reached your goal. 50,000 (okay, 59, 820) words wasn’t so bad. You can do it again.

Those were the few words I wrote to myself at the end of my NaNo challenge last year. Back when I was just starting to get the hang of writing, understanding my characters, slowly getting an idea of what a plot really was. Now I look back on them, with two more 50,000 word challenges, and over 400,000 words in the past year, and I remember the feeling. The elation of reaching my goal.

Granted, a year later, going back over the 4^th draft, and comparing it to the part that I wrote last year, I’m shocked to read it. Did I really put that there? Did I really make them have that conversation? Why, oh why, did he do that? That’s completely stupid! It can make the rereading and editing a struggle. Trying to pull in lost threads, little subplots, and sometimes, simple things like keeping the teacher’s names straight (Ms. Myles is science. Mr. Mann is algebra. Ms. Myles does not teach algebra!), and realizing that you want to spell a character’s name a different way, can make it even more difficult.

Not all of it was bad. Oddly enough, there were times that I read something, and think, ‘wow, I don’t remember writing that, but that was genius!’ Then I’ll shape and reform it into something even better.

With the 3^rd draft, I had the opportunity to get a proof copy of my book. Basically, you do all the formatting, make a cover, write an about the author, send it off to the self-publishing company of your choice, and wait for your book to come in the mail. It really looks like a book. An honest to goodness, thick, stick-on-your-shelf book. I jumped for joy when mine came.

Then it was onto the horrid reread. Someone! Hit me with my book, please!

Formatting was screwed up, quotation marks were facing the wrong direction, words weren’t the words they were supposed to be (out instead of our), small little discrepancies in continuity. Things that made me want to hide the book away so that it would never see the light of day again. But I didn’t. I kept slogging through it, a few pages at a time.

My writing has improved over time and I know it’s not perfect yet, but I’m working on it. With NaNo just around the corner, I just have to remind myself, yeah, I’m going to write some pretty bad stuff, but somewhere in there, there’ll be that little gem that will make it worth my while.

--Star Lit

T-minus 19 Days

It’s that time of year again, and we all know it. Well, most of us do.

It’s almost NOVEMBER!

And November means a myriad of things. Even more fall colors, college previews for us seniors, Thanksgiving, and most importantly, NaNoWriMo!!!

This will be my second year doing NaNoWriMo, and the first year that I actually have a plan for what I’m writing. A couple months in advance. Okay, actually, I’ve been messing around with this idea for the last five months, ever since I finished the first book. But shhhh, I’m keeping it a secret until November, so you’ll have to wait until then to find out about it ^_^

Last year, I wrote without a plan. I didn’t even have a character until the 1^st of November. Then, it just evolved from there. I didn’t even have a semblance of a plot until halfway through January, when it just hit me, ‘Oh, that’s what I should do’.

The same thing happened with Script Frenzy, a challenge where you’re supposed to write a 100 page script (movie, T.V., stage, etc.) in the month of April. By the end of April I had 200+ pages, and decided to turn it into a novel. Once again, I had had no characters at the beginning of the month, no plot, not even a setting. I finished writing it two months ago...

This year will be a little different, having to base things off of something that I’ve already written, but I’m trying to see it as just a continuation of the first book. Of course, two days in, I might end up scrapping that idea and writing something completely different. We’ll see.

--Star Lit

Jewish Dancing

‘Tis an amazing thing. And remarkably tiring and fun. A lot of time people can watch us dancing, and they’ll think, “Oh, that looks like fun. Not too much work.” Boy, are they wrong! You try running around dancing for twenty minutes straight, take a couple minute break for a mouthful of water, and then repeat. For two hours. If you need a work out, dancing is one of the most fun ways to do it.

Summer is killer when it comes to dancing though. During the winter, after practice, I’ll often go outside in just my t-shirt, and cool off in the 20˚ weather. During the summer, there is no cooling off, just the transition from one slightly air conditioned place, to the heat and humidity outside. It would be the perfect time for a swim, or a freezing cold shower, or something. Of course, during the winter, there’s always snow to compete with, but I can manage that.

Once a year, the local university hosts a Passion Play at Easter. For 8-10 hours you stand around in costume, waiting for the various rotations to go through. The Jewish Dancers are stationed in the marketplace, one of the busiest (and my personal favorite) places to be. The bread is amazing, and this last year, we even had a blacksmithing station.

With each rotation that goes through, we dance 2-3 songs. Kids from the market stalls join in, and sometimes we even get people from the crowd to join in as well. We’ll laugh with each other as we try to teach people the dances on the fly, laugh when we ourselves make mistakes, going the wrong direction, running into each other, and all in all, having a wonderful time together.

One of the best parts about it, is the kids from the marketplace that join in. It’s how I started, years and years ago. Eight years ago, when the first Passion Play was held, the Jewish Dancers were a new group. A couple of my friends and I were working in the marketplace, and between every rotation we’d go running off to the dancers and ask them to teach us the steps. For years, that was the only involvement my friends and I had with them, but we looked forward to it every year, want to show that we actually remembered the steps. They were always willing to help us, and even by the end of the first Passion Play, there was a group of us kids dancing with them. It went on like that every year.

The last few years, I’ve been a regular member of their group, going to practices once or twice a week, depending on my schedule, dancing with them at their other events, and finally, being an official member of the group dancing at the Passion Play. Even though most of the members of the group are considerably older than I am, I enjoy it a lot. Recently, I’ve been trying to get some of my friends to join the group regularly, and a couple of them have actually come.

Maybe we’ll lower the median age yet...

--Star Lit

MY Sixth Graders

Let me tell you a little about MY sixth graders. They are an amazing group of kids that I help teach on the weekends, and I love them all (well, okay, most of them) to death. They listen to me, even though I’m not exactly an adult. That is amazing, in and of itself.

The club that we’re part of goes camping a couple times a year, and last year (when they were, MY fifth graders) we camped at the beach. Aside from the obvious challenges involved in keeping the tents from filling up with sand, it was an exciting weekend. We took hikes in the dunes/woods, climbed some really tall dunes and ran down them (I successfully hurt myself doing that. I limped for the rest of the weekend >.<), and some of us even got to walk along the beach.

Getting to the beach was a complete mistake, of course. I had a group of six kids that I was taking on a walk, supposedly an hour long walk. We took a couple wrong turns (I’m not too familiar with those dunes, despite the fact that they’re 20 min. away from my house), decided not to turn around, and found ourselves at the beach when we were supposed to be back at camp. Thanks to the wonderful invention of cell phones though, we were able to call back to camp and let them know we would be late. We didn’t get into too much trouble... (heh, I got in more trouble than the kids, because I was supposed to be the responsible one! It’s hard to be responsible when you barely know where you’re going...)

Recently, we were working on classwork (stuff they have to finish to move up to the next level) and they had to participate in a skit on the life of, Esther, Jonah, Daniel, or someone else that I can’t remember. I was taking one group, and someone else was taking the other group, so we were each supposed to have about 10-12 kids. Then I heard the following:

“I claim StarLit!” It was a boy’s voice. If it had been a girl, I would’ve known that it was my cousin, and completely expected.

“Who said that?” I looked at the kids closest to me.

A quiet boy raised his hand, and then a whole row of six kids added that they wanted me as well. These were kids that I had worked with all last year, and they liked me well enough to want me to lead them again (even though I got them lost that once, yep, same kids ^_^).

It’s such a warm fuzzy feeling to be wanted. I seriously felt like I was floating for the rest of that day. These were kids that I liked, and trusted, and they liked and trusted me as well.

Just thinking of it now makes me happy ツ

--Star Lit

Meet Me

Hello! I’ve been debating for the last month or so, on whether to make a blog or not, and I finally did. Some of my friends say I have way too much time on my hands, but I don’t really! ^_^ This is where I’ll ramble about various things, from school to hobbies to other things that strike my fancy.

First of all, I’ll tell you a little about myself. I’m homeschooled girl and a senior this year. My last year of high school... *tears* Anyway, I’m really looking forward to getting away from home next year, even though I’ll probably be going to CollegeNextDoor. I’m hoping to double major in Speech Pathology and Spanish, with a minor (possibly) in English. Dunno. We’ll see what happens.

I have a bazillion and one hobbies. I won’t bore you with all of them, but here are a few of them:

Piano. I’m not the greatest at it, and I’ve only been playing for a couple years, but it is one of my favorite things to do. Especially when I’m feeling stressed, or bored, or excited, or... well you get the idea. My piano teacher is amazing because she lets me choose what I want to learn, and I’m not required to go through those oh-so-boring lesson books. If you’ve ever heard of unschooling, think of my way of learning piano as, unschooling piano.

Singing. It’s fun, but don’t try to get me to do a solo. I’ve done it before (in front of 1500+ people, I might add), but that was so nerve wracking, I don’t really want to repeat the experience (not to mention, my voice cracked *embarrassed*). Not for a long while. Of course, since I just joined a girl’s choir, there’s a very high likelihood that by the end of the year someone will have convinced me to sing a solo...

Acting. Mwhahaha. Acting is amazing. You get to be someone you aren’t, and can act completely crazy (if that’s your character) without getting strange looks. I’ve been random crowd people, random giggling girls, a soldier (Yes, you read that right. Me, a girl, as a guy soldier. I have pictures to prove it.), a crazy old aunt, and a know-it-all teacher/counselor. Not only do I act, but I write scripts occasionally too. To go along with acting, I also speak up front at times. My church is humongous (2,000-3,000 members), and I’ve been on stage there at least once a year, since I was in 5^th grade. Now, believe it or not, I have HUGE stage fright. I’m literally shaking while I’m up there (strangely though, not when I’m acting...) and so many times, I’m sure people can hear it in my voice. It’s getting better though, so maybe by the time I’m out of college I’ll be able to relax when I’m up front.

Dance. Jewish dancing to be exact. It’s uncommon, but awesome. I don’t really know how to describe it, but it is so much fun. I’ve been a regular member of the troop for the last two years, and we’ll dance at various events. Once it was after a special Jewish Church service, another time on the beach for our beginning of the year get together (the sunset was amazing), every year at the local Passion Play, and we’ll also teach one of the college’s religion classes dancing for a day. And for the record, I am not Jewish.

Writing. I love writing. I didn’t really know it until just over a year ago, and even then, I didn’t think I was any good at it. I found this event called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and not being one to pass up a challenge, signed up. For those of you who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it’s a challenge to write 50,000 words in a month. The month of November to be exact. That was the start of my writing. From there, it expanded. I hit the 50,000 words and surpassed it easily, giving myself “winner” status. Would you believe it, in the past 11 months, I’ve written two (non-related) books, both much longer than I had ever dreamed? English, which used to be my least favorite subject, became my favorite (mainly because after talking to my mom, my books count for A LOT of English credit). With November coming up, I’m getting ready to write the second book in my series. It is seriously turning into the highlight of my year.

Last but not least, and not really a hobby, I teach at a local club (think boy scouts/girl scouts/youth group). Along with a couple of adults and another teen, we teach one of the classes, about twenty-five sixth graders. I lovingly refer to them as MY sixth graders. They drive me up a wall sometimes, but I love them all the same. It definitely helped me make up my mind about becoming a teacher as a profession; I know I couldn’t deal with their shenanigans all the time. I helped with their class last year (MY fifth graders, then), and taught them a bunch of things, and directed them when we were upfront in my church. Can you say, nerve-wracking? I don’t know what’s all in store for this year, but I’m looking forward to it.

So yeah, that’s me, in a somewhat nut shell. Okay, not really. There’s a lot more, but I don’t want to bore you on the first post. And it’s a lot longer than I had originally hoped... Oh, well. ^_^

--StarLit